As our dependence on consumer electronics and computing devices has increased, the amount of data stored on these devices has reached unprecedented levels. Each device is suited to a specific set of uses and, in some cases, is incompatible with other devices. For example, smartphones and tablet personal computers (PCs) may not be configured to share various types of data or to utilize shared data effectively. Thus, users are required to perform duplicate data entry and, as a result, many computing devices contain redundant data.
One common function of a PC is the population of forms. As traditional paper forms become increasingly rare, electronic forms are commonplace. Users may populate electronic forms by entering data into one or more fields and by navigating between fields on a page or in a dialog box. Forms may reside in a web application, a traditional client application, in a mobile application, and/or in any number of computing devices.
While populating a form may seem to be a trivial task, many forms are extremely complex and require hours of rigorous input and calculation. Tax forms, for example, can be long and immensely complicated. Various fields within the form may be dependent upon values entered in other fields or in other documents altogether. As a result, users may be required to enter the same inputs into multiple fields on multiple devices or to enter data into one device which already exists in another device.